Damon Lindelof Teases Next Season Of Leftovers; Reviews Season 5 Of Game Of Thrones

PASADENA, CA – JANUARY 09: Executive Producer/Writer Damon Lindelof speaks onstage during the ‘The Leftovers’ panel discussion at the HBO portion of the 2014 Winter Television Critics Association tour at the Langham Hotel on January 9, 2014 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Damon Lindelof is a man who has dealt with fan reactions to a hit drama. So, he knows the expectations that Game of Thrones has to meet following his own experience with Lost. Now, Lindelof is behind HBO’s The Leftovers, which has its own slow burning mystery.

Lindelof spoke to EW about The Leftovers season 2, his career and Game of Thrones. Here are some highlights from that interview.

On what to expect in season 2:

“The first season was really about watching these people live their lives, [without] the kind of narrative drive of, say, a show like Breaking Bad. And it feels like this season, it continues to not be that show — we want to construct episodes that don’t end on cliffhangers, but that have a little bit more narrative drive. There is a central storyline to the second season that goes beyond just, “The Garveys move to this place.” The storyline is: “The Garveys move to this place and then this thing happens, and then that thing that happens basically becomes the running vein of narrative throughout the season and that does create some tension and some suspense. But at the same time, we still need to be able to do episodes like we did last season where the narrative is that someone stole Nora Durst’s ID badge — these small-scaled stories that are kind of built for narcissists. Stories where this matters to me, but I don’t expect it to matter to anyone else. Whereas, like, Stannis Baratheon [on Game of Thrones], every decision he’s making is to determine whether or not he’s going to be the king of Westeros. I don’t think that The Leftovers can ever enter into that space of, ‘You are watching the most important people on the planet.'”

On new characters:

“I want to preserve some things. But we’ve got Kevin Carroll and Regina King, most prominently joining the cast, and they’re the matriarch and patriarch of a family that lives in Jarden, Texas, and have been living there for quite some time, and they will get to know the Garveys and become intimately entwined with them as the season goes on. Integrating new characters into a preexisting show is always a slippery slope, and we obviously did it in season 2 of Lost with the tail section. The primary pushback from the audience — and I experience this too when I’m watching a show — is, “Where are the characters that I love?” It takes me time to warm up to somebody new. So we’ll see. But I think that they’re a very interesting family.”

On his reaction to season 5 of Game of Thrones:

“I love Game of Thrones. I read the first three books, and I was just finishing book 3 when the show premiered. And right around the time that Ned died in season 1 I felt that rush of book reader’s superiority — “I knew that it was going to happen and nobody else did.” But it was also intermingled with jealousy for the people who did experience it first onscreen. That’s where I stopped reading the books. Book 4 was already out, and 5 was on the verge of coming out, and I was like, “I would love to get to a place in this show where I am genuinely surprised.

I know there’s discourse now on the Web as to the deviances from the books, but all the Theon stuff was beyond book 3 for me. So [in season 5 I was] experiencing the show completely and totally cold — and I was surprised. I was very surprised by a number of things that happened this season. As someone who makes television, I watch that show and I do not know how they do it. I just don’t understand, on a sheer logistical level, of how they’re able to produce that qualitative of a product in the amount of time they have with so many different locations and so many different parts.”

The Leftovers returns Sunday, Oct. 4, at 9 p.m. on HBO. Check out the new trailer below and see what’s in store for the Garveys in season two.

[Photo Credit: Source]

Damon Lindelof Teases Next Season Of Leftovers; Reviews Season 5 Of Game Of Thrones